How The Rich Spend Their Time — Feeling Stressed

By Robert Frank

Being rich used to get you into the leisure class. Money meant freedom — from work, money worries, household chores and screaming kids (via boarding school).

Now, however, the wealthy seem to be as besieged as ever. The leisure class has given way to what I call the workaholic wealthy – an elite of blackberry-crazed, network-obsessed, paripatetic travelers who have to keep scrambling to maintain their place in life.

According to research by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist, quoted in an article in the Washington Post, “being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed.”

People who make less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those making more than $100,000 a year (I would call them affluent not wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure. “The richest people spent nearly twice as much time as the poorest people in leisure activitities that were structured and often stressful — shopping, child care and exercise.”

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In short, stereotypes about the leisure class no longer hold true. “In reality,” Kahneman and his colleagues wrote in a paper they published in the journal Science, “they should think of spending a lot more time working and commuting and a lot less time engaged in passive leisure.”

Definitions are key here. Personally, I wouldn’t classify exercise as compulsory or stressful. And the true rich ($10 million or more), may be exceeding their less-wealthy peers in true indolence. But my experience suggests that the rich are as stressed and un-relaxed as the merely affluent.

Why? Globalization and competition is probably the big reason. People with top jobs and businesses — ie the wealthy — have to work harder than ever to remain competitive. Big investors also have to work more in ever-more-complicated financial markets to maintain their dinosaur-sized nest eggs. Add to that the increasing complexity of life at the top — constant requests for money, overseeing wealth managers, lawyers and household staff — and the good life becomes its own management job.

Maybe being rich isn’t as relaxing as it seems. Do Wealth Report readers have any other ideas why?

Comments (5 of 36)

I knew it was more stressful being rich than poor. Poor people are poor because they're lazy and don't want to work.

7:39 pm June 27, 2008

Morning Brown Eye wrote :

The need for status and greed is pushing the upper crust. Morning Brown Eye

6:02 pm June 26, 2008

David Elton wrote :

It's all about balance and priorities. Some care more about flash and bling than they do about family. They are shallow...but they do exist. Those of us lucky enough to become wealthy probably became that way because of a work ethic and smart decisions. I happen to love time at the ocean which takes away all the stress. It costs almost nothing. I have to admit...to be honest....I am indeed attached to my blackberry....and have been that way for a very long time. Thank God for Montana and Cannon Beach (Oregon coast)

5:17 pm June 26, 2008

Frank wrote :

A better data set would be obtained by looking at people who have been wealthy and poor at various times in their life, rather than looking at people that have been at a particular wealth level their whole life. In my own case, I know I spend far more time thinking about money now than when I didn't have any, but I worked pretty hard the whole time.

9:04 pm June 25, 2008

Kimora Simmons wrote :

too funny

About The Wealth Report

The Wealth Report is a daily blog focused on the culture and economy of the wealthy. It is written by Robert Frank, a senior writer for the Wall Street Journal and author of the newly released book “THE HIGH-BETA RICH.”